Building new, healthier habits can take time and dedication. The key to developing new routines and behaviors that stick is finding ways to make them work with your lifestyle and personality, and habit building tools can help.
Because it seems like there’s an app for everything these days, we reviewed a handful of the most popular apps to build routines. Whether you’re watching your screen time, activity levels, sleep, hydration or moments of gratitude, we’ve done the research to find the best habit tracker apps to help you reach your new goals.
Streaks
iOS | $5.99
One of the most popular healthy habit apps, Streaks is currently available only for users of Apple devices including iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. The app tracks a wide range of habits and tasks from practicing a foreign language to flossing. Streaks can also help users cut back on unhealthy habits, such as smoking.
The Streaks app syncs between devices and data from your iOS Health App including your steps, blood pressure and other metrics. In addition, you can set or change reminders for each task (up to 24) with dashboards to help you see your progress.
A kid-friendly version of the app, Little Streaks, is available as well. This version can be configured to a child’s age and abilities, with options to set morning and after-school routines that include groups of smaller tasks.
The Fabulous app was created by the Duke University Center for Advanced Hindsight and promotes itself as using psychology and behavioral science to help you create habits that stick. The app’s approach is rooted in studied methods designed to change or create new behaviors, with a focus on reducing distraction and procrastination.
For people hoping to boost their mindfulness and gratitude along with productivity, this app offers a gentle approach. Fabulous incorporates a coaching tone and uplifting messages into goal setting, rather than simply requiring users to input data and metrics or tick a box to complete a task.
Loop Habit Tracker
Android | Free
The Loop Habit Tracker app is one of the most popular goal setting and tracking apps for Android users. The app is completely free and functions without distracting ads. Users enjoy simple graphics and metrics that track habits and goals over time, with reminders as needed. The app provides a habit strength score and offers flexible scheduling for daily, weekly and monthly tracking of whatever goal you are working toward.
The Structured app functions much like a daily planner and syncs to your computer, calendars and smart watch. The app helps to divide your day into visually appealing sections and tasks, with the option to enable habit tracking, add in notifications or capture tasks and thoughts for scheduling at a later time. This is a fairly basic all-in-one option for people who are interested in synching reminders across their devices with fewer frills and games than other habit tracking apps.
Structure offers users choices for color coding tasks and setting notifications, as well as an energy monitor to provide an overview of how much energy scheduled tasks require. The app’s optional “one sec” screen time tracking feature encourages users to take a beat before opening social media apps. It also gives users the choice to block apps until a task is completed, which is great for anyone monitoring their screen time.
Looking to build healthy habits on your own? Setting SMART goals is one of the best ways. Learn how to set and keep these goals here.
